


Hey, Crazy Idea: Let’s Date!

by Doevademe (OriginalDaemon)



Series: Changes in Our Relationship [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: And Nico constantly wonders why him, Fluff, Jason gets drunk, Jealous Percy, M/M, Percy has an epiphany, not very serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 16:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11444364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalDaemon/pseuds/Doevademe
Summary: Percy Jackson likes Nico di Angelo.Percy Jackson is in love with Nico di Angelo.Honestly, it shouldn't be as surprising as it is for Percy, but it leaves him with one problem: What will he do about it?Well, Percy has always been pretty reckless.





	Hey, Crazy Idea: Let’s Date!

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the Percico Event. This work is a sequel to "Mixing up the Routine", but reading it is not required to understand this one.

He was in love with Nico di Angelo.

The realization shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was, but Percy was still sitting shocked in Jason’s sparkly new apartment looking at nothing, Hazel apparently long gone after she helped him reach his epiphany.

He had stayed in Nico’s apartment in New Rome for nearly 4 months now. It had been surprisingly easy to just… adjust to life with the son of Hades. Percy had been happier, more focused (hell, he had even gone back to college) and had a better life overall, while he had gotten Nico to talk to his friends again. He didn’t even have to drag him along to Jason’s little get together over getting a new place.

But that was because Nico had a date.

Percy had just met the guy that night, and he already hated him. Nico had been telling him all month about going back into dating (how can you “go back” when you had never dated before the only boyfriend you’ve had in your life was something Percy couldn’t explain), and had been telling Percy about how he should do the same.

Percy didn’t want to, but Nico kept bringing up dates so insistently he had snapped and told Nico he’d go looking if he introduced him to the lucky guy. Nico had agreed and promised to bring him over to the next get together any of their friends organized.

He had braced himself for Tall, Dark and Handsome, someone he couldn't compare to. The plot twist, of course, was meeting Noodly, Gangly and Smarmy picking them up in a crappy, rusty car. The guy had the greasiest brown hair he had seen and if Nico hadn’t told him, he wouldn’t have believed he was a Mercury Legacy. He also didn’t like how he kept unsubtly leering at Nico, as if he couldn’t kick his ass ten ways to Sunday if he tried anything.

Nico could do so much better.

And not to be conceited, but Nico had a crush on him once, he definitely had better taste than that.

“Just tell my brother you like him already,” Hazel had told him mid rant. Percy had just stared at her, incredulous.

“I don’t like Nico,” he had said, and as soon as he did, he knew it was true. He realized he was so beyond ‘like’ that it wasn’t funny. His eyes widened at the realization and he said something or other to Hazel, but he wasn’t paying attention anymore.

Which brought us back to the present, where Percy was feeling sick to his stomach. He felt the sudden urge to go back home, to the (surprisingly) comfy couch he slept in, and burrow himself in a thick blanket and ignore the world until he could safely pretend he wasn’t in love with Nico.

He stood up and headed to the door. Jason would understand. It wasn’t as if Nico didn’t leave early without warning all the time…

Percy swore.

Curse his luck. Curse any and all gods. Jason was at the door, obviously drunk, talking with a clearly exasperated Nico.

“I’m telling you it’sshh fine!” Jason slurred as he made to take another swig of… whatever was in his glass. Nico thankfully grabbed it before he could. “I can handle it!”

“Just tell Leo you lost and be done with it,” Nico said as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Ah, a dare. He could understand that. Still, he took pity on Nico and decided to help him out.

“Hey man, I’m sorry about this, but I’m going,” he said. Nico and Jason both turned to look at him.

“Whyyyy?” Jason whined. Gods, he didn’t know what Leo had given him, but it must have been good stuff.

He felt tempted to ask for some of it to deal with his realization.

“I feel sick. Must be that cheap Thai place I had lunch at,” Percy held his stomach. Jason nodded as if he had just told him some universal secret he already knew about.

“Well, if you’re leaving, I’m going with you.” Nico basically jumped to grab his jacket from the hanger by the door (seriously Jason, who under the age of 50 _has_ those?).

“Uh… you sure? Won’t uh—” _your boyfriend_ “Dylan be mad?” Nico’s face scrunched in confusion.

“You mean Spencer? He already left.”

Whoops, the name wasn't even close. He'd apologize, but he was sure the world's supply of sarcasm would dry up if he tried. Still, he  _was_ curious about why he left.

Being the bro he was, Jason answered before he could ask.

“Dude wash craaazy! Who even triesh to cop a feel on the firsht date?” he asked as he laughed like a mad man. Percy blinked.

“First date?” he turned to look at Nico, who already had his jacket on, glass nowhere to be seen and looking downright murderous as he glanced at him.

“You coming? Some people in here don’t know when to shut up,” Nico muttered, turning his glare towards the Son of Zeus.

“What? I’m aweshum at keeping shecrets! I haven’t told anyone your gay!” Jason looked at Nico as if he had offended his whole family. It held for about a second before he turned green. Reyna, who he hadn't noticed had approached (but really, who else would Nico trust to not give Jason back his drink?), stepped up and hurried him towards the bathroom.

“Let’s go before he gets weepy,” Nico said, opening the door and basically running into New Rome’s streets, leaving Percy no option but to hurry behind.

“How do you know he gets weepy?”

“I don’t. But I won’t wait around to see if I’m right.” Nico finally slowed down.

The night was a little chilly, but Percy was too preoccupied to notice he had left his own jacket back in Jason’s stupid coat hanger.

“So…” he looked at Nico, trying to appear as uninterested as possible. “First date?”

“I might have… embellished the truth,” he admitted. “I don’t have a long term relationship. It’s more like… a long list of potential dates.”

“And of that long list you chose to bring the guy who lives in his mom’s basement to meet our friends?” He asked with a hint of sarcasm.

“He was the only one who didn’t mind doing this instead of movies or dinner.” Nico shrugged. “In hindsight, it was obvious he thought he’d get lucky if he agreed.”

“Poor bastard,” Percy chuckled. “I didn’t know you were into casual dating.”

“I’m not. It’s just… I want to date again. It’s been years since Will, but I realized I know nothing about flirting and stuff. Will was the one to ask me out and I didn't really do anything back then, so…” he held up his phone, showing Percy the screen with Spencer’s ugly mug on it. Below was some basic info on the guy and an option to change the writing to Latin, ancient Greek and English.

“There's a Demigod dating app? _You_ downloaded a Demigod dating app?” Nico blushed as he hid his phone. Percy tried not to laugh, seeing Nico was truly embarrassed about this. “Nico, you don’t need that to get a date.”

“Then what do you suggest, Mr. I-get-the whole-Starbuck's-staff-numbers?”

“That only happened once!” He protested. “And you need to let things happen, you know? If you force it, you’d only be unhappy in the long run.”

“How can I let things ‘just happen’ though? My dream guy won’t just show up and ask me out if I wait around long enough.”

Percy kept silent for about a minute, his mind whirling at top speed. This was a terrible idea. So much could go wrong. They _lived together_ for goodness sake.

Still, it wasn’t the first time Percy Jackson did reckless stuff.

“Do you want to go on a date with me?”

Nico stopped dead in his tracks.

“W-What?” his voice was trembling.

Crap. Retreat. Retreat!

He gave a nervous laugh.

“I know I’m not exactly your dream guy, I just—”

“Is tomorrow at 7 okay?” Nico asked, not looking at him directly.

“Uh… sure! I’ll pick you up!” Percy wanted to bolt, find some private place and maybe screech for the next hour or so.

Nico snorted.

“We live together, dumbass,” he said and smirked as Percy ducked his head.

Percy Jackson, everybody! If the Earth could swallow him up, he’d be mighty grateful.

“You know how I wanted you to get back into dating?” Nico said after a while. They had reached their building without noticing. Nico already had opened the door.

“Yeah?” He didn’t know where Nico was going with this.

The son of Hades opened the door to his room and looked at him with a shy, small smile.

“I thought it’d easier to live with you if you were unavailable.”

The door closed behind him.

Percy stared at it for what felt like hours before grinning like a loon.

Maybe, just this once, he’d make an offering to Aphrodite as thanks.

And, just this once, he'd actually _mean_ it!

**Author's Note:**

> What I learned from writing this piece? I most probably suck at writing drunkard dialogue. It was a fun experiment, nonetheless.  
> I'll be honest, my original plan was not to continue this story, but to write a sequel for my Andromeda fic, but I realized 2 things:  
> 1\. That sequel would be mostly written from Percy's POV, which I have no experience for.  
> 2\. I realized halfway through the first chapter it needed a midquel to give the story a better flow. Said midquel would not end very favorably in the Percico front, which made it not the best choice for this event, which is about positivity for the ship.  
> So, I made this shorter piece for the Percico Event, both to practice for Andromeda's sequel, and to submit something fluffier and positive. Without realizing it, I gave a this series a "theme" I'm going to follow through should I decide to write any more installments.


End file.
